January 21th Spending

Total spent...$0! I didn't have time to spend money, I was too busy saving it! ( Read previous post)

After I finished switching car insurance, I spent about an hour and a half in the kitchen making dinner/clean up. Not how I planned my evening. I had the worst meal prep. I made a recipe I never made before, and instead of looking at everything I needed and getting it all ready before I started, I just started at the beginning and chopped and saulted the veggies. Then when I went to add the cream of mushroom soup, I couldn't find it! I searched everywhere, and we didn't have any! Lucky for me I could look up online how to make it and it wasn't hard. So I whipped up some cream soup, only to realize that I never thawed the spinach! Into the microwave that went!
I thought I was finished, I just had to add the chicken and bake. Well, stupid me for not reading that the chicken had to be cooked! Go figure that the 2 smaller pans to cook the chicken in were in the sink!

I turned a half hour top prep time into an hour! Then I spent the 30 minutes it was cooking cleaning up. At least it was really yummy!

What I learned:
1. Always check and make sure that you have all the ingredients before you go shopping. Don't assume that you always have it, physically check.
2. Start with a clean kitchen. Clean counters for work space, and a clean sink.
3. Skim through the entire recipe before you get started. That way you won't have any surprises.
4. Gather everything you need before you start. Ingredients, pots, measuring tools, etc.